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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29993835">Rivers of Ravagog</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Biana_Amberly_Vacker/pseuds/Biana_Amberly_Vacker'>Biana_Amberly_Vacker</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>KOTLC Different Perspectives [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Keeper of the Lost Cities Series - Shannon Messenger</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, How Do I Tag, My First AO3 Post</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 18:54:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,292</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29993835</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Biana_Amberly_Vacker/pseuds/Biana_Amberly_Vacker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the time the gang flooded ravagog was told from Linh’s perspective? Let’s find out! (Spoilers for Neverseen)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>KOTLC Different Perspectives [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2206287</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Rivers of Ravagog</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Obviously, I do not own anything. Any breaks in dialogue is just me being lazy.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Rivers of Ravagog<br/>(Spoilers for Neverseen)</p><p>                My feet were tired, and we were not even at Ravagog yet. Keefe asked why we could not have the roots pull us there, and I must admit the words were on my lips too.<br/>“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Alvar said before vanishing. I could just barely make out the shifting dust as his invisible body moved out of the tunnel. Mr. Forkle handed us a bottle of water, and Keefe guzzled the whole thing. The flask refilled, but the water… was not right. I could feel it.<br/>“I wouldn’t drink that,” I warned. “There’s something wrong with the water.” I gave into the call of the water a little bit, creating an orb around my hand, a faint greenish glow emanating from the water. Keefe apologized, and I could feel my brother’s shadow brush past me as it wrapped itself around Sophie’s mind. A few seconds passed before Keefe said,<br/>“I know you guys are talking about me.” How could you know that? I thought.<br/>“Care to fill me in?”<br/>Tam smirked. “I was asking why the president of her fan club spends more time styling his hair than the girls do.” I rolled my eyes but smirked a little. This rivalry between Keefe and my brother is completely ridiculous.<br/>“Dude, you did not just insult the Hair.” With that remark, Calla silenced them. I do not know whether to thank her or not. Annoying as their banter can be sometimes, it does lighten the mood, which is something we all need right now. Just thinking about what we are doing makes my head spin. We are breaking into Ravagog. Fitz and Biana, the two youngest Vacker siblings, are talking, but I do not hear anything until Alvar appears.<br/>“All clear. But hurry.”<br/>Keefe called this place creepy, and I must agree. From the steady rumble to the glowing moss, this town makes me want to do one thing: leave. But I cannot. I have a job. Tam adds shadows around us, and I can see the determination in his silvery eyes. I give him a look that tells him how proud of him I am. His only response is a look of steely determination. ‘Linh,’ his shadow whispers. ‘The mist.’ Right. I try to cover us with mist, but no matter how hard I pull, the mist has a mind of its own. Why can’t I do the one job I came here to do? Ravagog is so quiet. Why is the capital this quiet? Naptime, according to Alvar.<br/>“They basically push their workforce until they collapse. Then they let them rest just long enough to get back on their feet and drive them until they crash again. Their workers never get more than an hour of sleep at a time, and they keep working them until they’ve got nothing left to give.” I look at Calla, the gnome who is leading us. This will be her fate if we cannot pull this off. I am only more determined now. I cannot let that happen to her. Calla, who let my brother and me in and gave us a home when no one else trusted us. If I can do anything for her, it is this. Alvar instructs us to put on our hoods, and we all do so. Alvar leads us through this maze of a city to a bridge over the same wrong water that was in the tunnel. There are guards everywhere, and Tam confirms my thoughts when he says that there is no way we could skip past them.<br/>“I can go on my own,” Alvar offers.<br/>“Uh, you’re not the only Vanisher” Biana reminded him. But there is another option.<br/>“We might be able to cross on the water. And I could call clouds from the waterfall.” I say.<br/>“Can you really control the water?” Tam asked. If it were from anyone but my twin, I would be mad. “This isn’t normal water.”<br/>“The ogres add an enzyme,” Alvar explains. “It makes them stronger, but I’m pretty sure it’s toxic for anyone else.” He then goes on from there, something about filters, but I am not listening. I must see if I can do this. I can feel everyone’s eyes on me.<br/>“I can’t part or lift the water… but there might be a way. I need to get closer,” I tell Tam. Alvar finds us a way down and I make my way to the water. I call out in the water’s language, trying to understand it, trying to get it to understand me, to bend to my will. I feel a shallower place and try to move the water, ordering it to do as I say. I cannot do it for long. But it is a start.<br/>“I’ve found a way across!” I tell them. “But I can’t hold it for long.” I raise my foot on the shoreline, in the place where the water is shallowest. It is not a request. It is not even a demand. It is an order; one the water cannot refuse. With every ounce of my strength, I turn the water solid.<br/>“Follow my steps exactly. And do not lose your balance.” I slowly walk across the river, trying my hardest to hold it steady for Tam. For my friends. As soon as Alvar’s feet touch the river, I let the water free and sink to my knees, the world swimming in front of my eyes. “I… need to catch my breath,” I admit. Alvar keeps talking, but I am just focused on trying to stay conscious. Somehow, I stand up and start to follow. As we reach the top of the slope, I feel close to falling asleep.<br/>“Are you sure you can handle this?” Tam asks. I ignore him and reach out to the sky, relieved to find the water has not been tainted. I try to form two thick clouds, but I collapse into Tam’s arms.<br/>“You’re pushing yourself too hard.” Tam tells me. I know I am, but I must.<br/>“I know my limits,” I grit out. And I do. I am just overstepping them. I try to stand, but I fall again, and Tam catches me. I cannot make out any dialogue after that, but I do barely register a shift in arms. Tam must have given me to someone else so he could focus on getting us the cure and keeping us alive. We start walking. Or, more accurately, whoever is carrying me starts walking. I want to try to support some of my own weight, the echoes of my days in Exillum coming back, day after day of it just being Tam and me, the Coaches yelling at us to be faster, stronger, better than we are. I manage to pry open my eyes to some sort of playa, with shops and ogres of all ages and genders out shopping. I want so hard to hate the ogres for everything they did to Serenvale, to the gnomes, to Sophie. But the scene looked so… normal. Normal, happy families going about their lives. That is the truth. You cannot hate a group of people if you know all of them, if you know all their stories. And I suppose that is what I keep telling people too, to look past the worst in Tam and me. Just because everyone tells you to see banished twins, Tam and Linh Song, does not mean that is all of us. Fitz (so that is who was carrying me!) set me back down after a minute, now able to call the mist to thicken Tam’s shadows. We slowly tiptoe through the crowd until we reached the next level, this time with no more ogres. This time, we sprint to the staircase. Sophie’s telepathy speaks in my head, making me jump. Sorry to scare you, but I have a plan. The plan is crazy, and I was sure the stress had broken her at last. But it is not like this mission could get any more dangerous. Tam and I both agree to help her. I could hear whispering between Sophie and Alvar, so she was telling him the plan. I blanked them in mist, but just to be safe, and to ease my brother’s strain, I added a lot of mist. I think I soaked their cloaks. Oops. Just then, I caught my first glimpse of the triad. It took my breath away. But not as much as when Keefe stepped out into the light and threw back his hood.<br/>“I demand and audience with the king!” I watched the interaction between Keefe and King Dimitar with a mix of fascination and fear- okay, it was mostly fear. His could make or break the plan. Sophie and Fitz started reading King Dimitar’s mind. Keefe was right. They do stare into each other’s eyes. A lot. Tam’s shadow drifted over to Sophie, and I finally looked down. Keefe was getting choked be King Dimitar, and suddenly, the chest got picked up by no one. Biana. I smiled. But the smile was taken from my face when King Dimitar lunged at her.<br/>“EMERGENGY PLAN— GO!” Dex shouted, while flinging one of the cube-like gadgets at the ogre king’s feet. More gadgets filled the air as we levitated down into the fight. Fitz was holding Calla, but he set her down and screamed for his sister. Keefe was near Biana, punching some ogres. I need to do something.<br/>“Duck!” I shout, before sending a stream of water at them. The ogre swayed and toppled off a cliff. Oh no. I just killed someone.<br/>“Don’t worry,” Sophie told me. “Ogres phase shift as they fall, so you didn’t kill him.”<br/>“TIME TO GO!” Tam shouted, grabbing my hand and pulling me along and off a cliff. I knew what he was doing, but that didn’t make it any less scary. Dex threw another gadget, this one whiting out the world. We levitated as far away from the mountains as we could. Sophie couldn’t teleport us away from here, so we’d have to make it back to the tunnel. I gasped as I saw the army of ogres waiting for us.<br/>“Uh, Dex, I hope you have some more of those exploding gadgets left,” Keefe said. “Because I’m not sure how much longer Fitz and Biana can carry Calla.” Dex flung two more gadgets, boosting us to the other side of the bridge. which stemmed the flow of the ogres slightly, but nowhere near enough. And that was all he had.<br/>“Then it’s my turn!” I shout, spinning around and thrusting my hands towards the mountains. Streams blasted out of the waterfalls, flooding the playa and sending some of the ogres over the edge. Before I could be happy, Fitz, Biana, and Calla collapsed into the waves.<br/>“Linh!” my brother called, and I whipped my arms again, holding the water back with a tidal wave, and the three collapsed, hacking the water out of their lungs. Tam set me down in the paste-thick mud. At least I think he did. I’m just focused on holding back the wave. I can’t hold it much longer.<br/>“What if we let the tidal wave go?” Sophie asked. “Would it wash the ogres away?”<br/>“The canyon is too wide.” I somehow manage to say. “All it would away is the bridge.” My focus fades in and out after that. “Trapped… Technopath… survive… river…” River?<br/>“And would the flood be strong enough to break down the gates?” Sophie asked. I nod. “…time for you to flood another city.” Sophie said. Had she been talking? “And this time, let’s destroy everything while you’re at it.” Tam picked me up and carried me towards the bridge. We’re the same size, so he<br/>couldn’t have carried me perfectly, but I wish he could, because every falter weakened my hold on the water.<br/>“Hang on, Linh,” Sophie seemed to tell me. “You can do this.”<br/>“I can,” I tell her through gritted teeth. “There will be no flood until we’re ready.” And there won’t be. I can do this. Another pair of hands steady me. Fitz’s.<br/>“Brace yourselves!” my brother shouted. “Linh needs to let the water go.” And I do.<br/>“Do it!” Sophie cried. With a cry of relief, I let the water go and it crashes towards us.<br/>“It needs to hit us from behind!” Dex shouted. “Otherwise we’ll be crushed against the cannon!”<br/>“Working on it!” I tell him, letting out an involuntary scream as I twist my arms to curve the massive wave as much as I can. The wave crashed over us, splitting the bridge in two, the special enzyme Alvar described stinging like a lemon. I saw Dex’s group being forced to split, and he brought himself and Calla over to me, Tam, and Fitz. As the gates draw closer, I realize something. I cannot shield them on their rafts.<br/>“Fitz!” I yell over the sound of the water. “Tell Sophie to get in the water! I can shield them there!” Fitz nodded. The wave smashed into the gates, and it took all of my concentration to shield me and my friends from the following shrapnel. Sophie and the rest of the group was behind us, so we didn’t see them as we dragged ourselves out of the river. It feels so good to have my feet on solid ground again. More importantly, I took an enormous risk, exercised control, and succeeded. I still may be the Girl of Many Floods, but now that label has a sense of pride attached to it. On foot now, we start looking for the others.</p>
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